Dogs tagged with tattoos

Marking canines with ID numbers is popular service at Allentown show.

Make no mistake about it: Preston the Australian shepherd did not like being restrained on its back on the work table.

The animal was not happy when its hind legs were forcibly spread, and the dog flinched when it heard the buzz of the electric razor and the whirr of the tattoo needle.

But the procedure that affixed a permanent identification number on the canine's leg took less than 5 minutes. Not once did the animal wince in pain. And when the tattoo was complete and Preston was released, the dog leaped to lick the face of tattooist Sally Birgl.

Birgl was kept busy tattooing almost two dozen animals on the first day of the Canine Learning Experience dog show and fair, sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the American Kennel Club at the William T. Harris Agricultural Hall at the Allentown Fairgrounds.

Yet if it were up to state regulators in Harrisburg, Preston would have received his tattoo by a licensed veterinarian. The animal would have been unconscious from anesthesia before the work was begun. After the canine awoke, it would have had to remain under the vet's care for a full day or even overnight.

And Preston's master would have been handed a bill totaling anywhere from $100 to $300, instead of the $30 fee owner Paula Fehnel of Germansville paid Saturday.

Although Birgl was free to mark the animals with a permanent identification number linked to the database of a national pet registry, she is no longer allowed to tattoo the canine's lifetime Pennsylvania dog license number. That's because new regulations, proposed by a veterinarians professional group and instituted by the state Agriculture Department last spring, make it illegal for anyone but a veterinarian using anesthesia to tattoo the number on dogs.

That may change in coming months, according to a state official who attended the show and observed the procedure. Mary Bender, director of the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement, says the regulation may have been a mistake.

"We're going to fix it," said Bender. "We're working on it." She said the state's official Veterinarian Medical Practices Board has reviewed the measure and does not believe dogs need to be drugged to get a tattoo. She said the regulations do not jibe with the Veterinarian Practices Act, which regulates the animal care business.

People can pose their pets for professional portraits, buy foods and beds and carriers for their dogs or gather information from any of a dozen or more canine clubs that are represented with booths and displays.

New to the position, Bender had never observed the tattooing and, mindful of the controversy, made a point of seeing the tagging.

Bender said the procedure seemed harmless to the pets and that any displeasure the animal might experience did not justify leaving them at a vet's office, or placing them under anesthesia.

"Some things really look cruel," said Nadine Bosico of Slatington, a breeder of Bofelli Australian shepherds, who had four animals tattooed Saturday with ID numbers that will be permanently on file with the Tatoo-A-Pet International registry. If the dogs are ever lost and delivered to an animal shelter, the code numbers on the inside of their leg will allow the shelter to trace the owner.

Bosico said she has tattooed every one of her dogs since the first she owned in 1976.